Team Reverb is on the scene at the South by Southwest Music Festival this week. Here’s what a few of us saw on Day 4.
Best musical moment: What was the most memorable music I heard/saw on Saturday, the final day of the SXSW music festival? There is no question in my mind: It was Christeene.
Christeene is a drag queen from Austin who raps like Mickey Avalon –- amateurish and dirty –- over big electro beats. There’s dancing, too, with booty-based choreography and two man-servant back-up dancers. And there’s also the spectacle, which is the kind of shocking thing you won’t ever forget.
Christeene wears a long stringy wig and a gold front tooth –- and little else. She has underwear made of floss, and her outfit (or lack there of) matches that of her dancers. If it sounds like trash, it is. Christeene might have been the trashiest musician at SXSW. And thatap the point.
All of the songs are frantic, often grotesque sex fantasies, and most of their titles aren’t all that printable here. But what was most impressive about Christeene -– even more than how shocking the whole experience was –- was how viable her performance was. The music alternated between hip-hop grime and house-tinged electro, and it was legitimate club music. Her rapping is hardly expert, but she knows a good hook -– and she’s not afraid … well, of anything. —Ricardo Baca
What’s keeping Austin weird: Saturday at SXSW is a weird day — exhausted from three full days of partying, you can either go for broke or fall on your ass. 10 hearty individuals chose the former when they climbed aboard the BarCycle — a two-row, 10-seat tandem bicycle with a captain (complete with captain’s wheel) and plenty of beer for everyone. Or, you can join the latter group like a guy we saw get laid out when he slipped on a banana peel — LITERALLY. Whichever camp you find yourself in, there’s one unifying thought on all of our minds: It’s sad to see the spectacle that is SXSW come to a close. —Paul Custer
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Ricardo Baca is the founder and co-editor of and an award-winning critic and journalist at The Denver Post.
Paul Custer is a Denver-based writer and regular contributor to Reverb.
